Mr. Quinn

We picked rhubarb from the organic garden at the back of the school beside our yard. We went inside to the school kitchen and washed our hands. We did this in groups as the kitchen is too small. Everyone else worked in the halla beside the kitchen while the group cooked. We put an apron on and cut off the leaves from the rhubarb. We then washed the rhubarb and cut it into small pieces. We put it into a saucepan, added some sugar and some hot water. Then teacher turned on the cooker and put the saucepan on it. We watched it bubble and had to stir it. Teacher tested the rhubarb with the wooden spoon to see if it was soft.

We let the rhubarb cool in a bowl on the windowsill while we were tidying up. When it was cool enough we put it in a cup with some vanilla yogurt and ate it. Some people did not like it and some people loved it. Some people liked it without the yogurt. We had great fun cooking.

We made crystals in class yesterday. To do this experiment you need a jar, a jug, a pencil, boiling water, some thread, a paper clip and salt. First we put some boiling water into a jug. We then poured salt into the jug and stirred it to dissolve the salt. You keep putting in salt until it stops dissolving. Then you leave the water to cool. When it is cool, pour the water and salt mixture into a jar. Next, tie a paper clip to a piece of thread. Tie the other end to a pencil and drop it into the jar. It shouldn’t touch the bottom or the side of the jar. Leave it somewhere to cool fully overnight. Crystals will appear on the thread. It was good fun doing this experiment.

We are doing a food science experiment. We want to see which type of food gets bad first. We got plates and put food on them. These are the foods we put on the plates: a half eaten apple, a piece of cooked ham. some cheese, some bread, a cut grape, a melon skin and a piece of banana. We are going to observe the food to see what happens. We are trying to predict what will happen and what will go bad first. We think that the banana or the apple will go bad first. We think the bread will go mouldy. We think the banana will go black. We think that the grape will dry up and shrivel. We will watch the food over the next week to see what will happen.

By Rang I

After one week the cheese has gone really hard. The banana has gone really black and has stuck to the plate. The ham has gone hard. The melon skin has really shrunk and curled. The apple has gone brown but we thought it would have gone more brown. None of the things grew blue mould. The grape has shrunk. The bread has gone very hard, but we thought it would have gone blue mould.

The Titanic sunk 100 years ago when it hit an iceberg. It was built in Belfast and took three years to build. Everyone said that the Titanic was unsinkable. It had enormous propellars. The top speed of the Titanic was 25 knots. The crew didn’t believe that there was a hole in the ship. 710 people survived and 1500 people died. The richest man at the time was on the Titanic and he didn’t survive. One person died launching the Titanic and nine people died building it. The Captain’s name was Edward John Smith and he died on the Titanic.

Seven people from Sligo were on the Titanic and only one survived. She was from the area near our school called Coolera. She had a penknife her friend had given her from Barton Smith’s shop (which is still open) and she used the penknife to cut the ropes when the lifeboats got stuck.

We did an experiment in class about the Water Cycle. You need a large bowl, a small sugar bowl, cling film and a sliotar. We put the sugar bowl into the large bowl and put hot water into the large bowl. Then we put the cling film on top of the large bowl. Then we put the sliotar on top of the cling film in the middle. We waited for a while. Steam began to rise. When it hit the cling film it made tiny drops and the drops then roll down the cling film and into the sugar bowl. This showed us how the water from the sea evaporates into the clouds and makes rain.

The March 2012 edition of the INTO magazine “InTouch” carries an article entitled “Schools That Blog – What’s the Attraction?” In the article, the Ransboro NS website is mentioned as one of the schools “which are wonderful examples of blogging and ICT integration”. At the same time Scoilnet, the portal site for all things educational in Ireland, is featuring art work completed by pupils in our school on the theme of the artist Jackson Pollock using an app on the iPod Touches under its “Schools Showcase” section on its homepage. These are both really nice mentions for the school.

Today is Safer Internet Day. It is a day for showing you how to use the internet properly and safely. We visited a website called Webwise and looked at a video about surfing the internet. We learned some Golden Rules about surfing the internet. These are some of those rules:

Don’t always say “Yes” when a pop-up appears

If you come across something bad on the internet, shut down the page. If that doesn’t work just turn the computer off.

Don’t always believe everything you see on the internet.

If anyone says you won a competition, don’t give them your bank account or email address.

If you find anything bad on the internet, tell your mum, dad or teacher. They can report it on the Hotline website.

Don’t give any personal information on the internet because this information can be sold to other websites and they can send you spam or a virus.

To find out if a website is telling the truth, look for their contact details or about page to find out who they are.

This is our third video that we made this year. We worked in pairs and we had to dress up. We had to say “Níl” or “Tá”. We had to say it all in Irish. We used an iPod to make the video and then we put it on the Mac to make the movie. We watched in on wide screen on the white board in class. It is a bit funny.

We made a video in Irish yesterday. It is called Éadaí. We made the video using an iPod. We had to dress up in different clothes. Teacher got the clothes in the costume room. Some of the clothes were too big for us. We had to say “Féach orm. Tá ____ orm”. We had fun making the Irish video.

We got a paper plate and we put some masking tape on it. We then painted it with a sponge. When it was dry we put more masking tape on the plate and put another coat of paint on the plate. We did this four times. When the last coat was dry, we carefully picked off all the masking tape and it made a beautiful pattern on the plate. Then we hung them up on the line in the classroom and they look beautiful.